Can't Take It
by libaka
Summary: during HBP. Draco is cracking under the pressure of the Dark Lord and decides to take a break one night. After finding something special, he changes for the better. slight HGDM. oneshot


Now, don't get mad at me. This isn't like my usual writing, and I don't think it's funny, which is weird for me. I ALWAYS write humor fics, with a side of romance.

I hope people like this! It was weird not to include humor in it, and I'm starting to wonder if this is going to ruin me for sad fics in the future. Well, as I don't have any planned, then it's okay, right?

Check out my other HP fics. All have humor in them, and they're really nothing like this.

Can't Take It

Setting: Hogwarts, HBP, around December

Draco was tired. Of everything. The Dark Lord was punishing Lucius for messing up at the Department of Mysteries, and both Narcissa and Draco knew it. Draco's mission was one, get the Death Eaters inside Hogwarts, and two, kill Albus Dumbledore. For all Draco hated school, he had no quarrel with Dumbledore, and didn't want the other students to die, no matter what they thought of him.

It was late, and Draco shuffled down the halls from the Slytherin dormitory towards the Room of Requirement to work on the cabinet. He had gotten the idea to use the cabinet when the Weasley twins shoved Montague into it during fifth year. Draco figured that once he finished fixing the cabinet, the Death Eaters could go through the store in Knockturn Alley, infiltrate the school, and provide enough distraction while he finished off Dumbledore. First, he needed to fix the cabinet.

Draco wasn't used to working so hard on something, usually he just had someone else do it for him. That wasn't an option this time, as only Blaise Zabini was smart enough to do something like this in Slytherin House, and Draco knew Blaise didn't support the Dark Lord. Draco wasn't prepared to use the Imperius on a student, especially since he'd have to watch them every second of every day. Using it on Madame Rosmerta was different. Draco didn't know her, hadn't spent every day of every school year for the past five years working alongside her.

Draco stumbled slightly outside the Room of Requirement door, and placed his hand on the wall to support himself. He was exhausted from working, from struggling to keep up his grades, and from worrying that someone would figure out what he was doing. He'd started working at night to lessen the chance that someone would find him, to give himself something to do instead of staring up at the ceiling wondering how his mother was holding up, what the Dark Lord would make him do next, and how soon Snape would accost him pretending to "help." For some reason, Draco couldn't bring himself to trust Snape, even though as a child he had known Snape as his uncle. Something was different about Snape and Draco thought that the Dark Lord had something to do with it.

Draco sighed, and then decided that he didn't want to work on the cabinet tonight. All he wanted was peace, quiet, and a place where he could find comfort. Focusing on this thought, Draco slipped the door open and slid his body through the small opening, wondering what he would find.

Draco's jaw dropped open slightly as he found a large room that seemed to keep expanding. To the left, there was a fire in an ornate fireplace, with a lovely chair beside hit and a stack of books on the table near it. To the right there was another relaxing area, filled with soft rugs and bookshelves, with a mug of hot chocolate and fluffy blankets to warm himself with.

As Draco stepped into the room and softly shut the door behind him, trills of music reached his ears. He caught sight of a small doorway past the bookshelves, and saw shafts of light coming from beneath the door. As he walked to the door, he noticed shadows flickering across the light, and realized that something was moving on the other side of the door. Draco stopped, and placed his ear against the door, hoping that he could find out what it was and leave without being caught. The only sounds coming through the door were music and the sound of metal over ice. Draco was almost hypnotized by the steady beat of the soft music and the constant _shhh, shhh, shhh _of the metal as it glided over the ice.

Overcome with curiosity, a feeling he hadn't felt in ages, Draco slowly opened the door a crack and pressed his eye to the crack, only to get the shock of his life.

A girl, with glossy brown curls and the straightest posture he'd ever seen, was flying across the ice on blades of metal. She wore a grey, long-sleeved shirt and loose, light blue pants that tied at her petite waist. She never stopped moving and Draco watched in awe as she jumped into the air and spun, only to come back to the ground and continue her rocking movements as she flew over the flat, shiny ice.

Draco could see the scratched on the ice, and surmised that she had been there at least an hour, probably more. Her graceful movements caught him by surprise; he always had trouble walking on ice, and usually preferred to melt it and get wet then lose his dignity by falling on his butt. He watched the girl as the music changed from a slow song to a faster one, and was entranced as she sped up and began performing more intricate spins, jumps, and glides on the ice.

Draco felt his heart nearly stop when he realized that the girl who had caught his attention so effortlessly was the Mudblood, the girl who, during the day, was a know-it-all brat and a cohort of the Wonder Boy-Who-Couldn't-Die and the Weasel. Apparently, at night, just as he was different, so was she.

Draco watched for what felt like hours as Hermione danced across ice, though it was only minutes. She, just like him, had needed relief from the harsh reality that was their lives and came for peace and quiet. During the day, Hermione was a stick-in-the-mud, obsessed with schoolwork and being right, pushing herself to prove to the Wizarding world that Muggleborns are just as capable as purebloods. At night, when she was by herself, she could release her inhibitions and peel away the façade to reveal a girl who had dreams, a girl who loved playing and having fun as much as the next sixteen year old, a girl who needed to relax and breathe like any other. Just as Draco found relief from society in flying on his broom or playing Quidditch, Hermione found relief from her sport: ice-skating.

Draco found, as he slipped out of the Room of Requirement with a book on Muggle sports, that there really wasn't that much difference between him and Hermione. They both had pressures from friends and family, they both found pleasure in solitude, and they both found the night gave them the freedom to be themselves, even if it was out of the sight of their peers. He wished that, for once, instead of being the stuck-up prick he was during the day, he could have let down his walls and asked her to tell him what that sport was called, how she learned, and most of all, how to do it himself.

Six months later, Albus Dumbledore was killed, Draco Malfoy was whisked away to the dark side to assist Voldemort, and Harry Potter stopped hating said Draco Malfoy. Four months after that, the Order, and Harry Potter as its leader, began to get owls carrying the plans of the Death Eaters, including strategies for attacks, lists of names of targets, and lists of names of Death Eaters. After the defeat of the Dark Lord, Harry Potter welcomed a much older, more mature Draco Malfoy back into the light, and one Hermione Granger told the world that, whatever his father had done, Draco Malfoy was not, in fact, as bad as they had thought.

Two years later, one Severus Snape found out that said Draco Malfoy was an avid supporter of Muggle relations, a father of twins, and married to the most respected witch of her time: Hermione Jane Granger.

OoOoOoOoO

Aw…I have no idea where this came from. I was listening to Kelly Clarkson and reading some slightly depressing fanfics, and this came to be. I really wanted to write it, too…

Review please.

Thanks to TamX2 for beta-ing.

MWAHs to y'all

libaka


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